The balance of power between clients and partners in the legal sector has shifted substantially in favor of clients, prompting significant technological transformations. Now, clients demand more than personal connections and dive deep into a law firm’s qualifications and technology stack before choosing their legal counsel. The legal sector is responding by evolving its marketing, business development, and knowledge management strategies.
In a 2023 survey by Litera of U.S.-based M&A lawyers, 73% of respondents reported that their clients had shown interest in their firms’ artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. This trend has encouraged the integration of GenAI with knowledge data in law firms, ensuring efficiency and customer satisfaction.
While AI holds immense promise for marketing, business development, and knowledge management teams within law firms, its application must be precise and well-managed. The legal sector has already witnessed several cautionary tales about improper AI utilization. A notable instance is a lawyer who utilized ChatGPT for legal research and ended up citing “bogus” judicial decisions.
Law firms can optimize GenAI by taking three actions:
- Breaking down internal silos to boost information flow for optimal decision-making.
- Using external data sources to broaden their knowledge base and keep abreast of industry trends.
- Turning unstructured data into structured data to unlock potential patterns and relationships within vast datasets.
The insights generated by AI, combined with data from experience management platforms, allow law firms to meet client expectations and present accurate, real-time market information. AI can help to bridge the gap between siloed systems and a central, consolidated view of the firm’s experiences – allowing for a data-driven approach that offers clients more than just traditional legal counsel.
As the legal sector continues to evolve, firms must structure their data to make the most of AI offerings, preparing for the next wave of AI advances. For more details, refer to Adam Ryan’s article at Bloomberg Law.